Gotham - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof On Broadway

MOST WANTED CULTURE WATCH
Anika Noni Rose (“Maggie”) and
Terrence Howard (“Brick”) in rehearsal.
Phylicia Rashad
(“Big Mama”).
Nine Lives
After 14 years, several close calls, countless cast changes, and
plenty of perseverance, a miracle finally happened: The Byrd
(Stephen, in this case) caught the Cat. by Anne-Marie Guarnieri
WALL STREET MEETS BROADWAY,
OR, “WHAT I LEARNED AT
COLISEUM BOOKS”
Byrd didn’t set out to become a Broadway producer. He spent most of his career as a “road warrior”
for Goldman Sachs, working in mergers and acquisitions. He lived in Paris and Hong Kong, but grew
weary of living out of suitcases and decided to take
an early retirement. What he quickly realized was
that he had no interest in filling his time playing
golf, so he decided to try his hand in the movie
industry. “I saw that African-American films had
never lost money,” he recalls, “but I really didn’t
want to do a New Jack City. My model was becoming more like Merchant Ivory, but for AfricanAmerican projects.” He went out to LA and got a
Howard and James Earl
Jones (“Big Daddy”).
and forth… and she called me about three months
later and said, ‘If you can get [James Earl] Jones,
I’d be interested in giving you the rights.’
“I didn’t know anything about theater,” Byrd
laughs. “I went to Coliseum Books on 57th and
Broadway and bought everything I could on
producing.” Byrd made St. Just an offer, which
she accepted.
Three days later, she passed away.
PHYLICIA RASHAD, “BIG MAMA”
Director Debbie Allen had a large part in getting the
lead actors on board, including her sister, Phylicia
Rashad. “My sister called me and said I had to do it,”
says Rashad, who won a Best Actress Tony for her
role as Lena Younger in the 2004 revival of A Raisin in
the Sun. “I never thought to play Big Mama, but I
never thought to play Lena Younger, either…. And of
course, when someone says ‘James Earl Jones,’
you say, ‘Yeah, I’m coming.’”
152 GOTHAM
TRAGEDY, COMEDY, AND A TOUCH
OF MELODRAMA
From the start, the list of actors who were attracted to the project read like a who’s who of
Hollywood’s elite. The initial cast was to include
Angela Bassett, Laurence Fishburne, and James
Earl Jones, but that production was derailed by
scheduling conflicts. Later, Halle Berry and Forest
Whitaker expressed interest, but neither actor was
able to commit because, according to Byrd, Berry
“decided to have babies” and Whitaker “wanted
us to wait until he garnered every award he could
for The Last King of Scotland” before getting
started. The names “Beyoncé,” “André 3000,”
and “Kerry Washington” were also bounced
photographs by Jeff Fasano
For 14 long years, Byrd was engaged in a battle
to bring Tennessee Williams’ classic play Cat on a
Hot Tin Roof back to Broadway, but with a twist:
He wanted to do it with an African-American cast.
Finally, after a host of setbacks—overextended
actors, expired rights, theater unavailability, bad
timing—all the stars (director Debbie Allen and
cast members James Earl Jones, Phylicia Rashad,
Terrence Howard, and Anika Noni Rose) have
aligned, and this March, Byrd will see his hardwon dream grace the Great White Way.
“It was a labor of love,” says Byrd. “It was a
pure labor of love.”
few movies into development, but quickly became
disillusioned with Hollywood. “One of the things I
did do, very naively, was approach Tennessee
Williams’ estate,” he says. “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
and A Streetcar Named Desire—I’d always loved
those projects. And it was like, if I’m going to be in
Hollywood, why not remake these?”
Byrd contacted Maria St. Just, who was the
executor of Williams’ estate, to get options on both
plays. When Byrd explained his idea to her, she
was skeptical, telling him that the “definitive” version of Cat, Richard Brooks’ 1958 film starring
Elizabeth Taylor as Maggie, Paul Newman as
Brick, and Burl Ives as Big Daddy, had already
been made. But Byrd was insistent. “We went back
TERRENCE HOWARD, “BRICK”
When asked how he feels about performing on a
Broadway stage for the first time, Howard says quite
simply, “I feel at home. I feel like I’m right at home.”
But that doesn’t mean the Academy Award nominee
is finding the work easy by any means. “Any character is a challenge because he has to become real,”
he says. “Brick, who’s struggling with feelings of
detachment, denial, alcoholism, and a failed
career—as well as a destroyed marriage and a dying
father—is challenging.”
JAMES EARL JONES, “BIG DADDY”
Jones, an Emmy- and Tony Award-winning actor,
says this is a role he’s always wanted to take on.
“When I saw Burl Ives play Big Daddy, I said to
myself, ‘That’s how the part should be played,’” he
recalls. “Tennessee Williams drew the outline, and
Burl filled it in with a lyrical Shakespearean grandeur
that he understood as a balladeer. Today, in this production, I have to approach Big Daddy as if I’ve
never met him before.”
Halle Berry and Forest Whitaker expressed interest,
but neither actor was able to commit, because Berry
“decided to have babies” and Whitaker “wanted us
to wait until he garnered every award he could for
The Last King of Scotland” before getting started.
STEPHEN BYRD MAY BE THE MOST PATIENT
guy in showbiz.
The Players
DEBBIE ALLEN, DIRECTOR
Despite the play’s storied history, Allen feels no
obligation to stage it any way other than her own.
“There’s a lot of notes, honey,” she says with a
laugh. “But I’ve created a set that I’m very proud of.
It’s really Tennessee’s idea, but my translation.”
and Counting...
Producer Stephen
Byrd and director
Debbie Allen.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof:
around, but they, too, didn’t work out.
Byrd’s patience was starting to wear thin. “I
thought, I want to get this done before the Lord
arrives. I just can’t wait anymore,” he says. He
reached out to Debbie Allen, whom he’d met
back when he was first trying to get the project
off the ground, to direct. She jumped on board
right away. “Stephen Byrd was the real catalyst
for this whole thing happening,” Allen says. “He
started on this journey over 10 years ago, and we
talked then…. And now here we are, actively
making it happen.”
Today Byrd is embracing his new career with
fervor and looking toward his next theater proj-
ect. “You can die of hope in Hollywood. They’re
not helpful at all,” he says. “And in New York, ‘no’
is a complete sentence. There’s a difference that I
like. The theater community is very small, and
they were very receptive to me.”
And he’s able to look back on the last 14 years
with his sense of humor still intact.
“Last year we had the cast together and everyone was ready to go—and there were no theaters
available. Everyone then became subject to
availability, and I could see this thing falling
apart again,” he says, shaking his head at the
recollection. “But we endured and let ’em know
that Cat has more than nine lives.”
ANIKA NONI ROSE, “MAGGIE”
For Rose, a Tony-winning Broadway vet who’s been
doing a fair amount of film work since her turn in
2006’s Dreamgirls, this opportunity represents a
homecoming. “This is where I come from,” she says.
“It’s really wonderful to step back into it, and as much
as I love musicals, it’s fantastic to do a full drama.
There’s nothing like it…. Stage is it. This is where you
really just do it—there’s no net here.”
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opens March 6 at the
Broadhurst Theatre, 235 West 44th Street. For tickets,
call 212-239-6200 or visit telecharge.com.
GOTHAM 153